Geriatric assessments

Assessments for patients admitted to the same hospitals – refers to cases where the need for performing the assessment arose while the patient was receiving hospital care. This does not include patients who have been hospitalised for purposes of performing geriatric assessments. For example – cases where a patient has been referred to the nursing care ward by a person performing the assessment in the outpatient ward. Such cases are marked under the label „referred by the outpatient ward“.

Assessments performed on patients reffered from elsewhere – refers to cases where the assessment is performed on patients who have been despatched from other institution. For instance cases where the nursing care division receives a patient sent over by other health care service providers. Such cases are assessed based on the referrer – i.e. „family doctor’s office“, „other hospitals“, „outpatient specialist health care provider" or „welfare institution“. Family doctors working in welfare institutions are counted among family doctor's office.

Geriatric assessment – refers to evaluating the overall health, functional and social condition of grown up individuals with multiple coping disorders together with implementing a tailored service plan by a team of specialists consisting of a physician (specially trained to provide help for geriatric patients), nurse, social worker and other specialists (if required). Persons are counted on the basis of evaluation (i.e. persons assessed several times in a given year are counted multiple times in statistics).

The purpose of collecting geriatric assessment data is to assess the number of geriatric assessments performed in Estonia together with gaining an insight into the success rate of such treatment.

Data was collected from all health care providers provided with a valid operating license pursuant to the Health Care Services Organisation Act and associated regulations issued by the minister of social affairs during 2012–2017. Geriatric assessment data was collected by the annual report titled „Geriatric Evaluation“. The report was filled by all legal persons that have been engaged in providing geriatric assessment services in the given year (Estonian Health Insurance Fund’s list of health care services code 3027). The report was filled based on assessment documents of the geriatric assessments. Health care service providers were required to submit data based on their operating region.

Šved-Pantelejeva J. Geriatric assessments 2012–2015. Tallinn: National Institute for Health Development; 2017. Analysis is available here in pdf-format

Jane Idavain

Department of Health Statistics

National Institute for Health Development

E-mail: jane.idavain[ät]tai.ee

Updated: 3.03.2023